Changes have been made to the Excellent rating following the agreed changes to the National Quality Framework (NQF) by education Ministers and ACECQA’s review of the criteria.

Commencing from 1 February 2018, the changes include:

Eligibility –To be eligible to apply for the Excellent rating, a service must be rated Exceeding National Quality Standard in all seven Quality Areas.

There are no changes to the way in which the overall rating for Exceeding NQS is calculated. To be rated Exceeding NQS overall, all quality areas must be at least Meeting NQS, and four or more quality areas must be Exceeding NQS, with at least two of these being quality areas 1, 5, 6, or 7.

To be rated Exceeding NQS in a Quality Area, all standards in that Quality Area must be rated Exceeding NQS.

For Western Australia, this change will be implemented by 1 October 2018.

Application fee – There will no longer be an application fee for the Excellent rating.

Criteria – Two themes in Criterion 1, that are used by ACECQA to guide assessment of applications, will be combined.